Olive Schreiner was an author, feminist and social theorist. Although she received no formal education Schreiner would become one of the most important social commentators of her day.

Her writings include allegories, social theory and novels. One of her most famous novels, The Story of an African Farmer (1883, originally published under the pseudonym Ralph Iron), “secured her reputation as an evocative storyteller, a daring and perceptive freethinker, and feminist” (from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online).

The Olive Schreiner Letters Online provides you with access to transcriptions of Schreiner’s more than 4800 extant letters located in archives across Europe, the US and South Africa, with detailed editorial notes and background information, thanks to the Olive Schreiner Letters Project. The transcripts include insertions and deletions, omissions and spelling mistakes – so just as Schreiner wrote them. The letters are fully searchable and guides to the archival locations of all her letters are also available.

If you are interested in political history, socialism, feminism, women’s or gender studies, colonialism, imperialism in southern Africa, political and economic change in South Africa after the First World War and much, much more then this is a fascinating resource.

The Olive Schreiner Letters Online (http://www.oliveschreiner.org/) is a freely available resource. It can also be accessed via the Databases pages on the Library website.

The Library holds a number of Schreiner’s books in its collections – Olive Schreiner works in Library (e-books are only available to students and staff at University of Edinburgh).

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science